SINGAPORE - Shares of Singapore-listed No Signboard Holdings slid on March 15 when trading resumed after a two-year suspension.
After opening at 3.1 cents, the stock lost as much as 90.3 per cent to trade at 0.3 cent at 9am.
It quickly recovered some ground and traded above 0.1 cent for most of the day, before closing at 1.7 cents, or 45.16 per cent lower. Nearly 7 million shares changed hands over the course of the day.
In a bourse filing on March 14, No Signboard’s interim chief executive Lim Teck-Ean noted that the company had obtained approval from the Singapore Exchange Regulation to resume the trading of its shares on March 15 following the satisfaction of a number of conditions.
The company announced on March 13 that its consolidated shares were expected to resume trading on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) Catalist board in board lots of 100 shares on March 20, while a 6:1 share consolidation exercise approved by shareholders in November 2022 will take effect on March 22.
Mr Lim said at a Securities Investors Association (Singapore) (Sias) dialogue with shareholders on March 13 that the company expects its shares to resume trading “within seven days”, after it had fulfilled the trade resumption conditions listed in a letter from SGX.
The March 12 SGX letter stated that the regulator did not object to the company’s trading resumption proposal, provided that the company met the conditions.
This included disclosure of pro forma financial statements in relation to the acquisition of a new business that provides catering services for clients at various industrial sites in Singapore.
In February, No Signboard announced the acquisition of a 60 per cent stake in catering firm Dining Haus for $1.2 million.
Other required disclosures include the board’s opinion that the group is able to operate as a going concern, and confirmations from the board and the group’s sponsor that the company has sufficient working capital for at least 12 months after the date the company’s shares resume trading.
This is based on the company having received a total of $8.5 million in rescue funding from a third-party investor, Gazelle Ventures. The sum comprises $5 million transferred in 2022 in exchange for shares in the company and an additional $3.5 million recently placed in an escrow account as working capital.
During the Sias dialogue, No Signboard non-executive director Alvin Tan highlighted No Signboard’s future focus on “organic growth” by expanding its current businesses.
He cited plans to open additional outlets of the group’s casual dim sum eatery, nosignboard Shengjian, and to explore potential overseas expansion.
Mr Tan, who is also chief operating officer at Gazelle Ventures, noted that No Signboard is actively exploring mergers and acquisitions opportunities with “no less than six or seven parties”, highlighting these as the “quickest way” to restore profitability for the company.
“We never lost sight of growing the business and we will continue to do that,” he said.
